Ten NSW Police officers traversed 8m seas in a nearly 80-hour mission to pull the men from their sinking yacht after severe weather damaged their yacht hundreds of kilometres from land in September 2022.
More than a year later, the team has been awarded the Australian National Search and Rescue Award during a ceremony in Hobart on Thursday.
John McEnallay, 74, and Keith Turner, 70, were plucked from the sea by NSW Police patrol boat Nemesis after their yacht Aviva was damaged in severe weather, stranding them about 330km east of Lord Howe Island.
The pair were sailing from New Zealand to Moreton Bay north of Brisbane when a storm hit in the early hours of September 5.
After activating an emergency beacon, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority initially responded with its Melbourne-based challenger rescue aircraft, along with an Australian Defence Force aircraft.
But the vessel's location at a distance of 1100km northeast of Sydney required a different sort of retrieval mission.
The Nemesis, with its crew of 10, was deployed to pull off the perilous rescue.
Police search and rescue co-ordinator Ryan Spong said the operation was a test for the vessel, which was usually tasked with deterring drug traffickers.
"It's really at the extremity of our capabilities in terms of this vessel, but well, once we knew they were in distress there weren't many other assets that could assist," he said at the time.
Speaking to ABC Radio on Friday, Sergeant Spong said the waves were "up around the 4m mark" when the crew arrived at the sinking yacht.
Nemesis and the two rescued sailors arrived in Sydney on the afternoon of September 8.
NSW Police said it was the longest offshore maritime rescue operation by any Australian water police unit.
It took 35 hours to reach the two men for the retrieval mission before the rescue and return to shore.
Marine Area Command Superintendent Joe McNulty said the rescue was extremely challenging.
"The crew were faced with not only a rough swell and darkness but also the very real danger of ropes and cabling from the yacht becoming entangled in the propeller of the tender," he said.
"But the biggest reward for them was that they were able to return these two men safely to their families."
The Aviva was unable to be recovered and sits at the bottom of the Tasman Sea.
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